Chat with Trump: SS+K’s BFF Trump Facebook Messenger chatbot

The motto of US creative agency, SS+K, is “SS+K was born to lead brands through moments of change.”

Now is a moment of change in US politics. It is about to have either its first woman president or…well, Donald Trump.

The agency, that has been 33% owned by M&C Saatchi since 2014 and was 33% owned by Creative Artists Agency until 2013, may not be leading brand America through its moment of change, but it has found a way to engage the millennials who have the potential to do so. Those millennials are enthusiastic followers of both Facebook and new-tech. They also get much of their news via Facebook – whose algorithms manage what they do and don’t get to read – and are avid Messenger users.

It’s likely that these potential votes do not “know” the real Trump. They’ve missed the gems that news media has picked up on like, “You know it really doesn’t matter what the media write, so long as you have a young and beautiful piece of ass,” and, “It’s freezing and snowing in New York – we need global warming.”

The agency has teamed up with Betawork’s messaging bot platform start-up, Dexter, to create BFF Trump, a Facebook messenger bot that lets users explore all of the inflammatory comments Trump has made.

BFF Trump works on either Facebook’s desktop or mobile messenger platform, and guides users through a series of conversations about Trump’s views. There are currently more than a hundred Trump quotes used.

To access it, users just have to open the bot their Facebook Messenger accounts, give the chatbot access. They are then presented with Choose Your Own Adventure versions of Trump’s quotes that they can move through – each a hot potato issue such as gender equality, immigration, abortion, climate change, torture, and Trump’s attitudes to minority groups. Every Adventure, or series of messages, ends with a Really? link to a news item that proves the quote real.